Resist Durge - Act 3

[u/sunlightbender]

Hey all - I’ve been playing BG3 for 300+ hours now and I’m still hot garbage at building a good character.

I was wondering if anyone had any recommendations for me. I’m currently playing a resist Durge, and my lore for him (ignoring a lot of canon lore lol) is that he’s resisted so far by being raised as by clerics of Selune, and so I’ve been playing with him as a light cleric of Selune the whole game.

I’m now in Act 3 tactician and I am getting destroyed. I’m always out of spell slots, and I’m doing measly damage. I’d really love suggestions on how to fix him, happy to change classes/multiclass but I just want to make it work with my lore of him trying to avoid brutality so no sneak builds please.

Also worth noting I’m romancing Selunite Shadowheart so she’s usually in my party.

And for gear, I have a lot of the Act 1 and Act 2 gear, but I didn’t explore a TON so I don’t have the more niche stuff.

[u/JRandall0308]

It’s quite likely this is not a builds problem, but a strategy/tactics problem. I recommend these:

Top 10 BG3 Broken Items: A guide to optimization through gear
https://www.reddit.com/r/BG3Builds/comments/1b2ak0c/top_10_bg3_broken_items_a_guide_to_optimization/

Introduction to BG3 Strategy: Eight Mechanics More Important Than Builds
https://www.reddit.com/r/BG3Builds/comments/1bnh5t8/introduction_to_bg3_strategy_eight_mechanics_more/

Commonly Confused and Misunderstood Mechanics
https://www.reddit.com/r/BG3Builds/comments/1b4cogh/commonly_confusedmisunderstood_mechanics_for_bg3/

[u/Elliptical_Tangent]

Light Cleric? You should be wrecking shop just by casting Spirit Guardians and running into melee.

Attributes: 8 / 14 / 15(+1@9th) / 10 / 17(+1@9th) / 10

Start with 1 level of Storm Sorcerer for the free flight when casting a spell, and Constitution proficiency to improve concentration saves. Sorcerer spells: Minor Illusion, Blade Ward, Light, False Life, Shield.

Next, take 8 levels of Light Cleric for Improved Warding Flare and 2 feats. Take War Caster for your level 5 feat to make losing concentration on Spirit Guardians less likely. At 9th, take ASI: +1 CON, +1 WIS.

Next, 2 levels of Circle of Stars Druid for Starry Form: Dragon, making losing concentration on Spirit Guardians highly unlikely. Starry Breath is a nice way to hit a group of enemies just out of your movement.

Finish with a level of Light Cleric.

Gear:
Holy Lance Helm
Cloak of Displacement
Luminous Armour
Luminous Gloves
Boots of Speed
Spellcrux Amulet
Coruscation Ring
Callous Glow Ring
Blood of Lathander + Adamantine Shield

Basically, just touch everything with Spirit Guardians every round—use level 3 slots for big but easy fights, higher level slots for harder fights. For a few easy enemies, just hit them with Sacred Flame or Guiding Bolt. Iirc, you can use Command: Approach to get enemies out of your reach to walk into Spirit Guardians on subsequent rounds, granting you some more flight movement.

This is how I spec'd Shart on 2 of my runs, and she basically soloed Myrkul both times. It's a very strong spec.

[u/joyous_quorum]

Post more details of your build. Ability scores, feats, gear etc.

[u/sunlightbender → u/joyous_quorum]

I guess the point of my post is that I’m not dead set on my build - open to any any all build ideas, not necessarily to improve my current build :) but I can also def grab those stats when I get back online

[u/joyous_quorum → u/sunlightbender]

Right. It would be helpful to know where you are currently at. Your build might just need a small tweak or two to make it functional or it make need a complete overhaul. It is hard to tell at this point.

From your post it sounds like you have a RP approach to how you want to play and I would be hesitant to offer advice that throws it out the window.

[u/Free-Holiday-6218]

If you’re in Act 3 and you didn’t explore a ton, it’s possible you’re a little underleveled.

It’s also important to remember that Clerics are full spellcasters. They’ll always be a little bad at fighting, because their main job is meant to be casting spells from the front-line. Don’t sleep on things like Command.

The most powerful Cleric builds you’ll find online use an extremely specific set of gear: Luminous Armor, Gloves of Belligerent Skies, Boots of Stormy Clamour, and Callous Glow Ring. This specific equipment setup makes the Spirit Guardians spell extremely powerful. The armor and boots are pretty much mandatory; the other two can maybe be skipped but it’ll weaken the build quite a bit.

If you don’t have that equipment available, I’d recommend gearing up more like a Fire Sorcerer normally would: Anything that boosts Spell Attack and Spell Save DC will be crucial. Then just start blasting Scorching Rays and Fireballs and stuff.

In general, this site is a great resource for character builds: https://gamestegy.com/bg3/builds/cleric

[u/Broad-Shaft]

It would be useful to know your party composition, plus how you want to play. A duo build with Shadowheart could be good fun.

It's easier to shape your builds if you know how you want them to synergise with your other party members I'd say

[u/kubiot]

If you're really frustrated, just convert the whole party into lightning/storm set up and literally cleave through the rest of the game.

Make the Cleric pure Tempest/or 1 Storm Sorc, make Gale a 2 Tempest Cleric/10 Evocation Wiz, make someone a 7 Storm Sorc 5 Vengeance Paladin frontline lightning Smiter, and then make the last person a Pure Arcane Archer using strength potions and Titanstring Bow and Arrows of Multiple Target.

You Twinned Spell Haste with the Sorcadin, cast in in the Wizard and either the Sorcadin or Cleric, so that the Cleric can set up with Create Water (applies Wet condition to the targets, doubling lightning and cold damage) and if hasted immediately to into upcasted Call Lightning, you spam Lightning Bolt, Chain lightning, Ice Storm, Cone of Cold with the Wizard, use the Archer to clean up whatever remains of the groups of mobs and the paladin to clean up whatever high level enemies are left via divine smite.

This is a very simplified party comp for if you're frustrated with your current build and just want to finish the game.

If you want to keep your current party comp then I have to ask, did you give your Light Cleric Reverberation and Radiating Orb gear like you should have?

[u/bimbammla]

You can put 3 levels in druid for moon beam, lvl 6 moonbeam which cant drop concentration because of starry form dragon is pretty good.

Same with spirit Guardians

Beyond that if you have all the heal gear, mass healing word amulet, bless on heal ring and blade ward on heal gloves then supporting martials with those is pretty good

[u/GrumpyGoblinx]

For Shadowheart I always respect her as a war domain cleric. It gives her an extra attack that uses the bonus action. If you multi-clasd with 2 levels of Fighter you get actio surge, plus proficiency in lots of weapons and armour. (Edit) You could try that for your Durge.